The further illustration of these benefits, as well
as of the limitations under which they must be aimed at, will be
better deferred until we come to speak of the details of
administration.
The positive evils and dangers of the representative, as of every
other form of government, may be reduced to two heads: first,
general ignorance and incapacity, or, to speak more moderately,
insufficient mental qualifications, in the controlling body; secondly,
the danger of its being under the influence of interests not identical
with the general welfare of the community.
The former of these evils, deficiency in high mental qualifications,
is one to which it is generally supposed that popular government is
liable in a greater degree than any other. The energy of a monarch,
the steadiness and prudence of an aristocracy, are thought to contrast
most favourably with the vacillation and shortsightedness of even a
qualified democracy. These propositions, however, are not by any means
so well founded as they at first sight appear.
Compared with simple monarchy, representative government is in these
respects at no disadvantage. Except in a rude age, hereditary
monarchy, when it is really such, and not aristocracy in disguise, far
surpasses democracy in all the forms of incapacity supposed to be
characteristic of the last. I say, except in a rude age, because in
a really rude state of society there is a considerable guarantee for
the intellectual and active capacities of the sovereign.
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